September and October HOPP – Overview

The September and October HOPPs are finished! This means that we ore officially half way through with the Helping Other People Project! Wow. Thank you so much to everyone who has come along thus far and we hope that you’ll stay with us for the rest of the project! We have quite a few exciting things planned.

So these last few months have been a bit of a.. journey, to say as simply as possible.

If you didn’t already know, we made these months about refugees and asylum seekers here in Bangkok. We combined the two months, because 1 month just wasn’t enough time. And to be completely honest, two months wasn’t either.

Allow me to explain what I can, and excuse me for what I can’t.

We wanted to go about this legally, not breaking any laws, and not going against any authorities here in Thailand. So, one night at a cafe that I happened to go to, many different NGO representatives were there to talk to people about their organizations. I was really, really reluctant in going (and nearly didn’t) But, this night led to several different partners for the HOPP. One of them being Born Free Foster Care, which is an organization that helps children to get out of IDC, and then finds foster homes for them here in Bangkok.

After a few meetings with them, we finally formed a solid plan. We would raise money (which we did through a bake sale) and collect needed supplies for children who would be coming out of IDC, or so they had hoped.

It looked promising, everything was in place for the children to come out within the next few months. All the paperwork had been signed and passed along, all the needed people were ready to give their homes to these children, all the children were ready to be out. But, this event was postponed due to some crackdowns on quite a few refugee communities.

Things got busy with the organization, they became overwhelmed and we decided that among all the chaos, it was better for us to leave and let them sort out what they needed to.

As unfortunate as this is, it was just too much for Born Free to help us with this project.

So, with all the money and supplies that we raised, we still plan to help the children and people of IDC, just in a little different way. We’re in communication with several different people who work closely with the people being held inside IDC, and are working out visits to them. The money will be used to supply food, toiletries, hopefully some cream medicine, and education supplies, for people inside instead of out.

We can’t do much else except try to provide a little bit comfort to the people.

Thank you to everyone who bought cookies and supported us these last two months, it means a lot to us and will help quite a few people.

For the next month we’ll be working with PAWS Bangkok, a shelter for street cats. New post about this coming soon!